This is an especially baffling problem for me. I bought the gun new for 2002. Since then it has had a tendency to sometimes jam shells from the magazine into the wall too low to fit into the chamber. It is like it needs a feed ramp, but of course, none can be installed.

The frequency of the problem was greater when the gun was new. This year, it has only once jammed a three-inch magnum. I have never known it to ever jam a 3 1/2 inch magnum. It does about one time in seven or so jam a 2 3/4 inch, 1 1/4 ounce, 3 3/4 dram equivalent load. Worst are 1 1/8 ounce, three dram trap loads. I have never used anything lighter than that in the gun. It never jams anything in any way other than the one way that I have described.

Cycling the gun manually, it always works properly when the gun is held level. It jams every time when I point it up and cycle it manually. Sometimes I wonder if the gun is bouncing the shell off the roof of the action and causing it to be too low when the bolt drives it forward.

Is there anyone here who can tell me what is causing this problem and how to find a mechanical fix. I thought of sending it to Remington, but I fear that I might go to all the muss and fuss and expense and risk only to have something done that does not solve the problem.

Im by far a gunsmith but you might try this ,clean the gas ports out really well, from what you say it functions fine with shells that carry a big whop and shells like light weight trap loads jam, it could be a clogged gas port. Has this gun always done this?

The issue is not the length or the power of the shell that went "bang" in the chamber. It is an issue of the length and possibly the weight of the shell coming afterward from the magazine. I am convinced that the longer shell has its crimp end close enough to the mouth of the chamber so that it hits the chamber and slides in whilst the crimp end of the short shell has longer to travel, hence the shell has more time to drop low. The shorter pressure curve of the trap load may be an aggravating factor. That size of trap load is designated in the owner's manual as being minimum, so it could be kind of borderline.

The gun did its worst for failure to feed back when it was new. I am sure that the port is clean enough now but it will be getting its annual thorough cleaning before this month is flown. I clean so seldom only because, since living in Renton, Washington, the gun gets so little use. The good hunting is a long, expensive trip away and the dear wife needs extra care.

This coming Saturday is my annual round of trap. I am going shoot continental. I will try installing the magazine extension with its longer spring and see if that has any effect one way or the other. I do not see how it could, but I cannot see any other mechanical solution for the problem either.

By the way, I bought this gun in 2002 as a replacement for a worn out Remington 1100 three-inch magnum that I had purchased new in '72. It was one of those with the soft barrel steel that was the subject of a class-action lawsuit. I got a check for $20. The one gas bleed-off hole grew extra large due to erosion of the too-soft steel which gradually, with heavy use over decades, caused the gun to destroy itself. Until its end it was very reliable with almost never failing to feed.

There are two possibilities that come to mind. Easiest is replace the mag spring and follower. That fixed my SP. The other is you may need to replace the feed latch. It may be slightly bent or malformed. Not hard and not expensive.

if it has done this since new I would break it down and check for burs in and around the magazine tube and inside the action . It could be as simple as needing some light work with a file to make it work.

My older rem 100 has a green plug keeper and the keeper is installed with a slight twist, sometimes the keeper will hold the plug down an inch inside the magazine and cause the wrong spring pressure, like the other guy said there might be a slight burr or dent in the magazine.

I have such a curious spring/plug keeper on my Remington 11-87. Conversely, I had a much different design on mine old Remington 1100. Oddly, when I disassembled the magazine this morning to install the extension and its longer spring, I found the plastic keeper to have broken during the hunting season. It no longer keeps. Worse, when the spring launched itself, the plug, and the keeper at high velocity unto the ceiling and to wherever they all bounced to, it was only the broken keeper and the spring that I found. The keeper no longer keeps no matter how I turn it. It be just another case of some cheapie plastic manufacturing short-cut gone wrong. I have had similar problems with cars and trucks. I threw the keeper away, and now the end of the spring is up against the bottom of the screw-on cap. It is poised to spring out like a jack-in-the-box when the cap is unscrewed again. I am hoping that the plug will turn up again some day.

It does not strike me that having the keeper in it's half-inch inward position is relevant in as much as the extra compression is minor compared to what it would be if there is one, two, three, or four 2 3/4" shells in the magazine. Hunting birds in Washington, I never had more than two shells in the magazine.

On the continental trap range today, I had six failure to feed incidences out of 25 with the magazine extension. This percentage is slightly less than with it was without the magazine extension, but it might be attributable to luck. I told a bloke there about why I had the extension as I am sure that it looked rather strange for being on the trap range. He replied that he had the very same problem on his Remington trap grade 11-87 with only a 2 3/4-inch chamber. His solution had been to trade the gun in on an over/under. He recommended a particular gunsmith in Tacoma. He also recommended looking into having the gas bleed-off hole reamed out wider. I would be most careful about something like that for obvious reasons. He did say that he bought the Remington 11-87 through that very same man. That is not a discredit to the gunsmith as it is possible that the trade-in happened as an alternative to asking the gunsmith of fix it.

I was just now able to get through unto Mr. Mann of Illinois. He said that it was the carrier being bent and that he runs into the problem frequently. He asked me if it was hanging down low. I really do not know the answer to that inasmuch as I only know where it is and not where it should be. I am now going to look at as many Remington 11-87 pictures as I can find on the internet in in my owners manual and compare them to how my carrier looks from the bottom side.

It looks like my little problem is solved, thanks to you here and to Mr. Mann of southern Illinois. I have looked at numerous pictures of the bottom of other Remington 11-87's. None of them have the front of their carriers jutting down like the lower lip of a pouting child like mine does. I would judge that there is about an eighth of an inch of clearance between the front of the carrier and the bottom of the receiver. I shall order a new carrier from Remington straight away. Thank you, everybody.

I was not able to find the part on the Remington website, but I ordered it from Brownell's. I was amazed that I received it on my stoop on last Thursday. I also took that opportunity to order a new plastic keeper for the magazine spring and also spare rubber gas seal. The new carrier did look slightly more flat that the old one did. That is to say that it was less humped in the middle. The metal on both was very thick and stout. I seriously doubt that the old one was bent after manufacture. I suspect very strongly that it was manufactured the way it is now.'

Today was the proof. I took the gun to the trap range and subjected it to another round of continental. It did much better than I did. It scored 24 successful cycles out of 25. I did not do so well on breaking birds and not even as well as last time when it failed to cycle about a half-dozen times. The one failure was another of the familiar instances of the shell from the magazine approaching from too low and hanging up on the bottom of the chamber. The lower lip of the new carrier still protrudes a slight distance below the bottom of the receiver, but not nearly as much as the old one did. Considering the lightness of the load and that it is a 3 1/2 Special Purpose, I shall call it good to the point of being almost perfect.

Thank you to Mr. John Mann of southern Illinois and to War Wagon for referring me to him.